5 Yr Old Who Brought Cap Gun to School Interrogated for 2 Hours w/o Parents Until He Peed Himself

A Calvert County, MD kindergartner was interrogated for school officials for over two hours without the presence of his parents or an attorney. Eventually the interrogation ended when the boy peed his pants, behavior which his mother described as “highly unusual”. For some reason the school also brought in the boy’s sister, apparently attending the same school, for an unsupervised interview as well.

What could this boy’s offense possibly have been to warrant such a blatant disregard for his rights? He brought a toy cap gun with an orange tip onto a school bus and showed it to a friend. That’s it.

The boy was then suspended for 10 school days after the interrogation. This means he will miss the rest of his kindergarten school year, including graduation. It will also be part of his permanent record for the rest of his school career.

The family of the boy has retained an attorney to appeal the suspension.

“I have no problem that he had a consequence to his behavior,” said the mother, who asked that her name be withheld to protect her son’s privacy.

“What I have a problem with is the severity,” she said, “and the way it was handled”

The school tried to make it seem like it was doing the family a favor by ONLY interrogating their son and suspending him, as the school said if the boy had actually [God forbid] brought caps to school they would have regarded that as an active explosive device and been forced to get police involved.

This story actually makes me more sad than anything else. I remember being excited to get new toys such as cap guns when I was a child and showing them to friends. Now this child has been stripped of the enjoyment he will get from such toys for, most likely, for the rest of his childhood.

The family’s attorney put the issue into perspective best I beleive,

The family’s attorney, Robin Ficker, said that the age of the child is important and that the incident could have been used as a teachable moment.

“Kids play cowboys and Indians,” he said. “They play cops and robbers. You’re talking about a little 5-year-old here.”